Wonderful Wild Flowers

Hello crafters, 

It seems summer is here at last and to celebrate I crafted this wild flower meadow.

The focal image has been built up with stamps from the Crafty Individuals set "Wild Flowers" (CI-226), inked with watercolour crayons.

The background sky and grass is also watercolour crayons, shaved over water applied with a brush. 

I then revisited my older supplies and added several layers of papers, some die-cut, one punched and some distressed and/or torn. The many layers is unusual for me and, despite my best efforts, I still didn't incorporate as many as I had planned! It just goes against the grain.

A flower made with punches and patterned vellum and a sentiment die-cut add the finishing touches. 

 

Thanks for coming by,

 Craftyfield   I am entering the Allsorts, Stamping Sensations, 

                                                               We Love Stamping and Addicted to Stamps challenges

Seashells on the seashore

Today I'm showing one of the samples I made for Crafty Individuals Hochanda shows last week.  Last week I showed the CI- 497 Tropical Sunset (see my post here), now for the second one, CI-496 a beautiful large stamp full of seashells.

Tropical heat

Hot, hot, hot... a taste of the tropics!

Glistening snow and winter trees

No snow yet over here but the temperature has plummeted and we could well be in for some white stuff very soon!

Which reminded me of that fun snowman stamp from Rubber Dance so I decided to make a winter card that I could use either for Christmas or for New Year, or any other impromptu occasion that may come along this winter.

Be prepared with a spare card, that's the crafter's motto, isn't it?

 

I first stamped Mr Frosty and masked him with masking fluid (liquid frisket). I then cut some hills from masking tape. With the bottom of the card protected, I  applied water diagonally in stripes and sprinkled some Stormy violets Infusions (Paper Artsy) and some Brushos in green and violet. Whilst still wet, I splattered some iridescent paint on the background. The effect I was after was the Aurora borealis and this worked quite well, I think.

I stamped the trees in black ink (Stampscapes) and shaded the areas between the hills to define them with a grey watercolour pencil.

I added some glitter mixed with gel medium on the hills for the glistening snow, a sentiment from the Winter Wonderland, also from Rubber Dance, and some colour to Mr Frosty to finish.

More photos to try and show the changing colours according to the light:

 

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
I am entering the Rubber Dance colour challenge (I used glitter rather than the colours) and Forever challenge, Lost Coast Designs, Vintage Journey,  That's Crafty, Stamping Sensations, Addicted to stamps, SSS Monday Challenge, We Love To Create, Creative Artiste and Craft Stamper TIMI challenges.

Drawing faces

It's face off at Paper Artsy this fortnight and I felt duty bound to join in since I ducked out of the fabric challenge last time...
I don't do faces normally so this was a real challenge for me, and I was planning a whimsical feel to hide any anatomical and perspective errors. Along the line I lost the whimsy, apart from the big eyes, and there are a few odd looking bits but since I didn't model my face on a real person I won't get any complaints there...

I used watercolour pencils and crayons for the both the drawing and the colouring and I softened everything with a water brush.
I couldn't think of anything clever to stamp on/around my face and stopped tinkering as it wasn't getting any better!

Faces aren't my favourite but I'm pleased I managed to finish my drawing,
Have a crafty weekend!

Also entering the Simon Says Stamp challenge.

Multicolour Stamping

I love inking my stamps with colours be it inks or other media so the Craft Stamper technique challenge is right up my street!

The Autumnal colours were suggested by the Craft Room, Pan Pastel UK and Stamping Sensations challenges.

I used 3 large background stamps (Impression Obsession - Canvas and Grunge; Hero Arts/Sizzix Flourish) to create my "patterned paper". I combined different inks on the Canvas & Grunge and used watercolour crayons for the Flourishes. To give a seamless effect I use cut & Dry to blend the inks where the tone change is too big (e.g. from Walnut Stain to Antique Linen).
When using the crayons I use as little water as possible (better to get the crayon wet rather than the stamp) to preserve as much of the design as possible. Here is a pic of the stamp with the watercolour crayon so you can see how much there is.

The Crafty Individuals image has been inked with several Faber Castel big brush pens and I used Distress inks and Cut & dry to age the panel.

My finishing touches include gilding flakes on die-cuts and other die-cut pieces.

Love that technique and playing with the crayons is great fun,

Childhood is...

Childhood is my choice of word for the latest Craft Barn Challenge. I haven't really tried to illustrate the quote as it is such a conceptual one, so I took my inspiration from using:

1. new stuff  (as in brand new)
2. old stuff  (very old, very very old & antique)
3. scraps.

 First, I wanted to play with my new embossing folder (Tartan by X-Cut), well new to me as I got it in the sales! I wanted to use my old watercolour crayons again and tested a few versions. In the end I first inked the folder with Distress ink in Tumbled Glass, embossed and highlighted the raised areas with the crayons.
The colours were inspired by my scraps, this time ribbon scraps, as this is the challenge at Lavinia Stamps. These had been lying around for ages waiting for a purge! (still have 2 drawers full of varying lengths though...)

Before stamping both in grey and black my Dandelions (Lavinia), I run the background in the label die and embossed, in order to flatten the panel.

I used my antique gel pens to write the quote and to colours the edge of the label.

Quite pleased with my purchase as I have the choice of which part to colour allowing for an infinite number of designs!

Thanks for coming by,